Author Note: Hello everyone! Here's the first chapter of a new tale from the author of Sparking Chaos. Well… new isn't really how I should describe it. In chapter 14 of Sparking Chaos, something happens. From there, I followed the route of the main character of that story. But, what if I followed the route of the other half of the group? Well, that's what this short story is about. Short, because chapters aren't going to be 5000 words monsters anymore. I think something around 2500 words each chapter will be a different change of pace. Also, short because there aren't going to be 20 chapters like SC.
Now, before anyone read further, I want to warn you that this chapter is going to sum up the main events up to Chapter 13 of Sparktail Chaos. So, you had intended on reading the story of a man turned into a pikachu and struggling to keep his mind safe from his instincts and from himself, then you will assuredly have the main events of the story spoiled. However, did I keep the mention to the man/chu's state of mind to a minimum, because that's the real point of that story. But, if you don't plan to read that story or have already done so, then go ahead and enjoy this.
By the way, I want to repeat that English is not my first language and that I am prone to typos. So please excuse the strange mistakes here and there. I tried to keep them to a minimum too, but I'm far from perfect.
Chapter 1: Fateful Encounter
On this planet, there are three kinds of people. There are the bad people, those egocentric and selfish individuals who only work toward their personal benefit. There are also the good people, who would give everything they have to make others around them happier, often at the price of their own well-being. Finally, there is a vast majority of people in-between, who do good and bad things, who fight their way through the obstacles fate has for them. Those people aren't known and aren't popular, but they make the world go around with their daily choices. The only thing those people want is their share of happiness, gotten through helping others and themselves to accomplish various goals.
Jen Sutter was one of those persons. The teenage girl had everything going for her: she was intelligent, had a fairly good body, both health-wise and in matter of attractiveness, and she was kind-hearted. She was a tad short, standing at only five feet and four inches, but her bright emerald eyes, her long light brown hair and her smile largely made up for that. However, instead of choosing to share her qualities with people around her, she decided to give to the pokémon of the world who needed help. That was why, instead of seeing this girl in towns, you saw her in the forests, where pokémon lived and sometime needed help. That was why she was hiding her attractive features behind a few kilos of hiking clothes, spiked boots and a heavy bag containing everything she needed to live. That was also why the unexpected fell upon her life.
The girl, born in Johto, had spent the first four years of her training career exploring her home land, spending more time helping and caring for the pokémon she met rather than actually battling. In fact, she had only two pokémon on her, one being her grass starter, a Meganium called Leafty. When she decided, at the age of 16, that she wanted to travel to Kanto to explore the region and eventually go to school to become a pokémon nurse, her father was enjoyed and wanted her to feel at home there. He had contacted Professor Samuel Oak about the possibility of giving his daughter a pokémon foreign to Johto. The professor, known for his researches and his liking for pokémon battling, gladly accepted the offer and prepared the perfect pokémon for the young trainer.
Before Jen could pick up her pokémon, an accident happened with one of the projects the old professor was collaborating to. The DX Project, nicknamed Project Ditto in honor of the famous shape shifting pokemon, was a secret experiment that began three year ago and aiming to reproduce, using nanotechnology, the shape shifting ability of Ditto. The experiment was promoted by the Kanto Army Forces and paid by private corporations, who saw opportunities of developing new weapons to strengthen Kanto position of power around this part of the world. Oak provided information about pokémon, the main test subjects for the experiment. His good friend William "Bill" Libovski, known for his technological advancements and his long term collaboration with Silph Co. to develop new models of pokeballs, was given the responsibility of building the prototype of the device in his new private laboratory build only for that purpose. It was in that lab that the tragic incident had happened.
Rick Tortoas, an intern working for Bill at the compound where the heart of his PC system was located, had impressed the scientist with his admirable skills with computer technology and his vast knowledge of pokémon. Although the intern was still young, he was seen as a great prospect for the future and Bill offered him the job of assistant for the Ditto Project. Unfortunately, things didn't exactly go as planned. Given the key to accessing the secret lab and impatient to know its secrets, Rick had decided to infiltrate the lab in the middle of the night to see by himself what this was all about. A stupid and immature decision, one would say, but if only it had been only that, things would have turned out better for everyone.
Inside that lab, Rick found the centerpiece of Project Ditto, the working prototype of a transformation machine. Working was a big overstatement, though. Although the first successful transformation had happened one year ago with little success rate, they had only involved transformation of pokémon into their younger selves, since the similarities in genetics increased the chances of success. Even if the success rate had increased since then to the point failures were rare, the machine still only allowed transformation into something smaller and had never officially been tested on humans. The effects of a transformation on the mind of an individual were still unknown and no one wanted to take any useless risks.
No one, until the curiosity of the young intern led him to enter the machine and to activate it on mistake. With no one around to stop the process, his fate was sealed. The brilliant but socially inapt intern ironically found himself waking up in the yellow fur coat of a Pikachu, species known for its heavy social lifestyle. When Bill found out about the transformation, he was disheartened and attempted to help Rick, but the former human had lost too much of his mind and needed special assistance to keep what was left of his mind intact until the machine was completed.
That's how Rick found himself at the other side of the region at Oak's ranch. As much Oak would have wanted to help the former human, he considered that keeping a strange acting pikachu around him for too long would be suspicious and that the best way to get rid of that little problem would be to give Rick to a trainer, where he would have known the joys of battle and eventually completely lose his mind. Since this wasn't the easiest and most ethical decision to take, Oak opted for a compromise: he would give Rick to the kindest pokémon trainer around, so he would live a good pokémon life. That's where Jen was unknowingly caught in a dangerous business.
Arriving in Pallet town to receive her promised pokémon, the girl had been the ideal candidate trainer for Rick. Along with her gift, a young Vulpix named Sunny, the teenage girl was also offered Rick, or rather Sparktail, as he was nicknamed back then, as a special gift. To explain Sparktail's intelligent behavior, Oak convinced the girl that the mouse had been found like this in the wild and that he was the main subject of an experiment aiming to understand just how brilliant he was. Since the girl was naturally gifted with pokémon, Oak believed that she would easily tame the unusual Pikachu. Proud of having been chosen for something this important, the girl left Pallet with her two new pokémon, unaware that she was now followed.
Since an incident of this nature couldn't stay hidden, Bill mentioned what had happened in his most recent advancement report on the project. Before he had let go of Rick, the scientist implanted a tracker chip in the rodent's head to know where he would be at any time. After getting word of the incident, one branch of the army decided that Rick would be a problem if he was to stay with a trainer and would endanger the secrecy of the project. Stealing the tracker's signal, they organized a pikachu hunt in Veridian forest, with the objective of capturing the mouse and his new trainer to silence them.
Jen, still oblivious to the bad omen hovering above her, reached Veridian Forest in no time and slowly became suspicious of her new rodent pokémon. It became obvious to her that had a better grasp of the world than any pokémon she had seen before, intelligent or not. When Rick tried to show her that he had been human, the witty girl caught on his distress signal and promised that she would help him. Using basic communication and a map of the region, the small group chose Cerulean as their next destination, the town where, according to Rick, they would find a way to help.
Before they could leave, another problem appeared to slow them down. Around their camp was lurking a large predator, seeking food desperately. The beast, a young umbreon named Kagai, was not in the best physical state. One week before, she had been an eevee playing innocently with her siblings, but on one fateful nightly excursion, she met with men in black who tried to take some blood sample from her. They succeeded in doing that, but in her tentative to escape, she evolved in an umbreon. This evolution should have been the greatest moment in her life, but her bubble of happiness was popped when she realized at the same time as her parents that she had taken the wrong evolution path. Her family, espeon for so far as the family line went, didn't hesitate to kick her out of the cave violently, leaving her injured and famished to fend off for herself.
When Kagai found the camp, her eyes became set on the tasty pikachu walking with the girl. She had tried to pounce on the rodent as soon he was alone, but this resulted in failure and her capture. Usually, Jen would have scared the predator away, but when she noticed the claws marks on the umbreon's side, she knew that the poor pokémon was alone and that she wouldn't survive out there. Again, Jen decided to temporarily take another pokémon under her care, until the vixen was strong enough to be released. It wasn't the first time the girl had done something like that and it wouldn't be the last.
After one week under the teen's care, Kagai had regained a lot of strength. Even if Jen didn't allow her to hunt the pikachu, she spent her time playing games with him and Sunny where he had the role of the prey, much to his dismay. During her short time with the human girl, Kagai had a few lessons about friendship and moral, but nothing would be quite as good as practical application of those teachings. Fate, in its twisted sense of logic and humor, made sure that those teachings would be applied. At the dawn of their ninth day together, the bond between a pokémon and its trainer would be tested like never before. Choices would have to be made and hard decisions taken. But in the end, there would be either a broken chain or a strengthened bond. Which one would it be? That… only Jen and Kagai could decide of it.
